Twitter is home to all kinds of speech, some unpopular and some unpleasant, and it's often been faulted for an apparent indifference to harassment campaigns. Today, that changed: the company streamlined its abuse-reporting process and promised more to come.
Today's changes relate to blocking, which in Twitter limits another user's ability to interact with you. A blocked user's @-mentions disappear from your timeline, and your tweets cannot be favorited nor retweeted by people you block. The blockee is also automatically unfollowed if they were following your account. (The secret Twitter hip-check move is tapping Block and Unblock, which knocks someone off your stream without notifying them.)
(more…)